Spawn Of Frankenstein

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8.2
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(Updated: September 13, 2012)
Overall rating
 
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
8.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
Review by boon23 — December 22, 2008 @ 6:02 am

First of all, let me say “thank you, Jorge” for bringing back such beautiful classics and creating a fanedit from them.
It was well worth the watch.

Contains heavy spoilers.

Please note that this review is just my personal opinion.

video editing: As usual for Jorge’s edits, the editing was done perfectly. The sepia coloring adds to the atmosphere.

An incredible lot was done to both movies and I can only assume how long it must have taken to create them. The reformatting to 1.85:1 was masterfully achieved and the movie looked as if it had always been intended to look like that.

The new opening with the green titles was first a bit of confusing, as it presented the movie a lot more modern than it actually was, because the sepia effect made it rather appear older. Still it looked really great. The trimming was done really well, one very long blending transition in the Pretorius speech felt a bit artificial as did a few others, as they were too perfect, when the actual movie comes with loads of what was common for that time: too fast movements, stuttering, artificial backgrounds, artificial objects (like the cemetery in the beginning that is stuffed with ridiculous objects).

The actor change of Elisabeth was about as confusing as the actor change for the oracle in the Matrix sequels, but Jorge could not do anything about it (why did the producers not at least let her have the same hair style and color one might wonder).
The story flows really well and it even kind of makes sense that a mad scientist like Dr. Pretorius could tame the creature a bit. The passing of time was a bit confusing though, as I never really knew how many days, weeks, months had actually passed. The movies were very well joined and especially “Bride” was edited to the better in my opinion. The all destructive lever is one of the most stupid ideas I have ever seem in a movie, yet it kind of did the job: no happy ending. (btw. as for the cast: Elsa Lancaster as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is The Monster’s Mate).

The original Frankenstein on the other hand was missing the emotional depth by making the monster just a monster without any other feelings but hate and the wish to destroy. For the later character development in Bride this part would have still been worthy to include. As it is now, the characters are a bit too one-dimensional. Besides that the story was well development and left no plot holes. The landscape that is shown when the monster is killing Little Maria was a bit not fitting to the style of the movie, even though it was repeated for one shot in Bride and from my feelings it reminded me a lot on what I felt in Jorge’s Kill Bill X fanedit, when Beatrix shoots the little girl (which is actually a nice trademark for an editor to have a consistent style over the years).

So, even though it was not 100% consistent to me, I cannot give anything else but: 5 of 5 stars for editing.

video quality: perfect. I noticed 2 times slight interlacing stripes though. 5 of 5

audio editing: consistency is an issue here to me. Sound levels, transitions, synchronicity were all perfect. The choice of additional music though was in my opinion not, but most of all just for the Frankenstein part. Bride was perfect. In the first 50 minutes of the movie, the styles of music change quite drastically from classic to almost modern. But the problem is more the technical quality. The new music came crystal clear, whereas the classic music was scratchy, overdubbed and lacked bass. Same goes for a few added sound effects that were crystal clear, while all the original ones were scratchy and old. Now don’t get me wrong, it was great to see the monster hunt to Bram Stoker’s Dracula score, but it was inconsistent. If it had been possible to keep to one style or quality the audio would have worked better for me.

Resulting in a 4 of 5 for audio editing from me (3 for Frankenstein and 5 for Bride).

entertainment: Was it better than the original? No. But that was not what this edit was made for. It was an all new watching experience of Frankenstein and as that it worked really well and kept me well entertained for most parts. I do not at all regret watching it and might even watch it again sometimes.
4 of 5 for entertainment.

presentation: The presentation is simply put: Awesome. Great menus, fantastic trailers. Nice cover art. The scene selection is the usual Jorge DVD style and pretty boring and not informative at all, as you get just numbers without any further clue. Still: I wish all fanedits could be presented as nicely as this one.
5 of 5 stars for presentation.

resulting in a 5 of 5 stars from me for this fanedit. Mission accomplished. Really well done.

Epilogue:
This is not the best fanedit I have ever watched, but it is great for what it is: a revival of the classic Frankenstein. I like it and can recommend it to anyone who has a heart for the good old stuff. To me it is an addition to the original Frankenstein, which I still find unsurpassed. And a definite improvement over “Bride Of Frankenstein”, which I will probably not watch again, but rather this one.
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